Cannot set Brave as default browser Arch Linux #2377

cndouglas · 2018-12-05T20:54:21Z

Copied from brave/browser-laptop#15323 by @Kallestofeles

Description

Cannot set Brave as the default browser in Arch linux. Set as default option does nothing.
System:
Kernel: 4.19.4-zen1-1-zen x86_64 bits: 64
Desktop: Gnome 3.30.2
Distro: Arch Linux

Steps to Reproduce

Install brave-bin or brave-dev-bin from the AUR
Run the Brave browser
Click on "Set as default" browser button
Rinse and repeat...

Actual result:

Expected result:

Reproduces how often:

Brave version (brave://version info)

Brave Version 0.56.15 Chromium: 70.0.3538.110 (Official Build) unknown (64-bit)

Reproducible on current release:

Does it reproduce on brave-browser dev/beta builds?

Website problems only:

Does the issue resolve itself when disabling Brave Shields?
Is the issue reproducible on the latest version of Chrome?

Additional Information

Brave-Matt · 2018-12-06T18:39:42Z

+1 from Community:
https://community.brave.com/t/various-bugs-on-arch-or-manjaro-linux/38521/2

helionmelion · 2018-12-08T13:17:44Z

I solved this problem manually setting xdg configs:

xdg-mime default brave.desktop x-scheme-handler/http
xdg-mime default brave.desktop x-scheme-handler/https

Kallestofeles · 2018-12-10T13:36:29Z

Thanks but does not work.

The issue is not that Brave was not the default browser - it is! It handles all the requests as it should, however every time the browser gets opened, it shows this set as default message + set as default from the settings does not work. The issue essentially is only cosmetic but annoying as hell as it pops up every time the browser is opened.

helionmelion · 2018-12-10T13:46:18Z

could you try this:
xdg-settings set default-web-browser brave-bin.desktop
next query if the operation was successfull:
xdg-settings check default-web-browser brave-bin.desktop

cinderisles · 2018-12-10T19:38:01Z

xdg-settings check default-web-browser brave.desktop returns yes but Brave still shows it's not the default browser. xdg-open opens Brave as it should.

helionmelion · 2018-12-10T21:18:18Z

tested here,
-setting other browser (for instance, opera) as default: xdg-settings set default-web-browser opera.desktop
-going back to brave: after setting brave as default browser by xdg-settings, the message appears, but closing it (x) does the trick, it does not pop up again.
But if I click "make default" in brave settings, the pop up is called again.
so, close the pop up by (x) and not clicking "set as default"

tildelowengrimm · 2018-12-12T19:41:01Z

I think that the next step in debugging this is working out how Arch is doing defaults/handlers differently from other distros so that we can detect and support that.

aphelionz · 2018-12-21T14:43:21Z

Confirmed this is happening on KDE Neon as well. I don't think this is an OS problem, rather a problem with how Brave is self-detecting if it's the default or not.

ryanerwin · 2019-03-27T06:43:07Z

The erroneous "Set as Default" dialog is still happening on Arch.

Brave: Version 0.61.51 Chromium: 73.0.3683.75 (Official Build) unknown (64-bit)
Linux 5.0.4-arch1-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Mar 23 21:00:33 UTC 2019 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Brave is set as the default for .html, http and https, but the dialog still pops up...

fmarier · 2019-04-24T14:28:58Z

What is the output of ls -l /etc/alternatives/x-www-browser?

Does making Brave the default using update-alternatives --config x-www-browser make the message go away?

cinderisles · 2019-04-24T14:34:54Z

@fmarier not sure Arch has update-alternatives. I believe that is a Debian-based thing

fmarier · 2019-04-24T14:50:40Z

I also saw update-alternatives on Fedora and so I assumed it was a standard Linux thing. Though looking at it closer, while it exists on Fedora, there is no /etc/alternatives/x-www-browser.

So I think you're right, that last part looks like a Debian-specific thing.

Pitasi · 2019-07-02T18:07:51Z

For the ones like me who manually set Brave as default but were tired of the popup at every startup: just click the X instead of "Set as default".

Took me almost a week to realize this :)

EDIT. I also realized it was already been said some comments up here: #2377 (comment)

kirk-baird · 2019-07-04T02:55:39Z

Similar to @helionmelion
I had to set it manually using xdg
xdg-settings set default-web-browser brave-bin.desktop
Note brave.desktop did not work as I installed brave-bin from AUR.

If you want to see what is current the default browser in xdg use xdg-settings get default-web-browser

helionmelion · 2019-07-04T10:39:36Z

Similar to @helionmelion
I had to set it manually using xdg
xdg-settings set default-web-browser brave-bin.desktop
Note brave.desktop did not work as I installed brave-bin from AUR.

If you want to see what is current the default browser in xdg use xdg-settings get default-web-browser

Yes I'm using the aur version now.
xdg-settings get default-web-browser
brave-beta-bin.desktop

Valinwolf · 2019-07-25T22:51:03Z

I can confirm that this is still a problem in Arch with Gnome 3.32.2 and kernel 5.2.2-arch1-1-ARCH. I have set Brave as the default browser in the Gnome Control Center as well as run the following commands, without luck:

xdg-mime default brave-bin.desktop x-scheme-handler/http
xdg-mime default brave-bin.desktop x-scheme-handler/https
xdg-settings set default-web-browser brave-bin.desktop

Running xdg-settings check default-web-browser brave-bin.desktop returns yes
Running xdg-settings get default-web-browser returns brave-bin.desktop
Running xdg-open "https://duckduckgo.com" opens https://duckduckgo.com in Brave

Clicking Make Default in the settings or on the popup does not help.
Clicking the X on the popup does not disable the popup.

Gilgames000 · 2019-11-01T14:45:02Z

I tried to set brave as my default browser using xdg-settings

$ xdg-settings set default-web-browser brave.desktop

but Brave was still showing the pop-up, so after clicking on "Set as default" I checked:

$ xdg-settings get default-web-browser
brave-browser.desktop
$ xdg-settings check default-web-browser brave-browser.desktop
no

So I thought, well maybe Brave is expecting the executable to be called brave-browser and not brave hence when I click on "Set as default" it's setting the wrong entry? So I aliased brave-browser to brave in my .bashrc:

alias brave-browser=brave

opened Brave, clicked on "Set as default". Logged out of my user and back in to check if it worked and the pop-up was gone!
Also now xdg-settings is showing

$ xdg-settings check default-web-browser brave-browser.desktop
yes

Hope this helps.

fmarier · 2019-11-01T16:52:28Z

alias brave-browser=brave

Interesting. I wonder whether that's something that the Brave maintainer in Arch could add to the package.

badlydrawnface · 2019-11-14T15:44:08Z

I figured it out,

You need to set the HTML default application to Brave for the popup to stop appearing

(Tested with KDE only, on Arch Linux)

Create a blank HTML file
Go to Open With, then Other Application
Choose Brave, and click the "Remember Application" tick.
Open the file in Brave, there, the "Brave is not your Default Browser" bar stops showing.

whezzel · 2019-11-14T16:10:46Z

You can also just click the 'x' instead of 'Set as Default' and the popup will stop appearing

martin-varbanov96 · 2020-05-27T12:56:10Z

Using sudo was the way I fixed it:

517 sudo xdg-settings set default-web-browser brave.desktop
518 brave http://archlinux.org/

Randomly tried all these, all of them failed:

502 xdg-settings set default-web-browser brave.desktop
503 xdg-open http://archlinux.org/
504 xdg-settings set default-web-browser brave.desktop
505 xdg-open http://archlinux.org/
507 xdg-settings set default-web-browser firefox.desktop
508 xdg-open http://archlinux.org/
509 xdg-open http://archlinux.org/
510 xdg-mime default brave.desktop x-scheme-handler/http
511 xdg-mime default brave.desktop x-scheme-handler/https
512 xdg-open http://archlinux.org/
513 xdg-settings set default-web-browser brave-bin.desktop
514 xdg-open http://archlinux.org/
515 brave http://archlinux.org/
516 brave-bin http://archlinux.org/

baptiste-dauphin · 2020-05-27T14:10:53Z

On Debian 9 x64 (using i3wm) nor xdg-settings neither xdg-mime don't even worked (even when outputing 0).

To solve the problem I had to manually edit ~/.config/mimeapps.list
It's dirty but it works !

[Default Applications]
x-scheme-handler/http=brave.desktop
x-scheme-handler/https=brave.desktop
x-scheme-handler/ftp=brave.desktop
x-scheme-handler/chrome=brave.desktop
text/html=brave.desktop
application/x-extension-htm=brave.desktop
application/x-extension-html=brave.desktop
application/x-extension-shtml=brave.desktop
application/xhtml+xml=brave.desktop
application/x-extension-xhtml=brave.desktop
application/x-extension-xht=brave.desktop

fmarier · 2020-09-11T23:31:31Z

Possible work-around for Arch Linux, courtesy of #11032 (comment):

ln -s ~/.config/mimeapps.list ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list

oviniciusfeitosa · 2020-12-08T02:33:12Z

If are you using Brave Nightly follow these steps:

xdg-mime default brave-browser-nightly.desktop x-scheme-handler/https
xdg-mime default brave-browser-nightly.desktop x-scheme-handler/http
xdg-settings set default-web-browser brave-browser-nightly.desktop

Hope it helps 👍

https://vinnyfs89.gitbook.io/knowledge/technology/browser/chrome-or-brave/known-issues#set-brave-nightly-as-default-browser-using-linux

adriano-pinaffo · 2020-12-12T09:54:43Z

I figured it out,

You need to set the HTML default application to Brave for the popup to stop appearing

(Tested with KDE only, on Arch Linux)

Create a blank HTML file

Go to Open With, then Other Application

Choose Brave, and click the "Remember Application" tick.

Open the file in Brave, there, the "Brave is not your Default Browser" bar stops showing.

This worked for me on Arch with KDE, but instead I went to KDE system settings and set the html file association to brave there (it was Firefox).
PS.: I had tried all other possible combinations.

FahriDevZ · 2021-03-01T11:00:36Z

I am using archlinux with xmonad, I install brave-bin.
I tried set default browser does not work because result xdg-settings check default-web-browser <name>.desktop is no.

My solution, check the desktop entity name.

ls /usr/share/applications | grep brave
# my result is: brave-browser.desktop

if doest not exits, you can check in different location, see here.

After you know what desktop name, you can try set

xdg-settings set default-web-browser brave-browser.desktop

Check

xdg-settings check default-web-browser brave-browser.desktop
# this result must be a yes

wknapik · 2021-03-23T20:26:21Z

Arch documentation on default applications

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/default_applications

Brave .desktop filenames on Arch Linux

Choose a .desktop file corresponding to your chosen package:

brave-browser.desktop (brave, brave-bin)
brave-browser-beta.desktop (brave-beta-bin)
brave-browser-nightly.desktop (brave-nightly-bin)
brave-browser-dev.desktop (brave-dev-bin)
brave.desktop (brave-git)

Out of these, the brave-bin package is recommended. It's the most popular, is actively maintained, packages pre-built binaries and is kept up to date with upstream releases.

Set Brave as default browser

It should be noted that setting default applications on Linux is not as straightforward, as on other systems. This is the flip side of the variety of possible setups across Linux distributions and within each one.

Different software respects different ways of setting defaults, so YMMV, but xdg-utils should be the go-to package for the purpose and should cover most cases. Users of desktop environments, which may use their own mechanisms to set defaults, should consult the documentation for their specific DE.

To use the stable release of Brave as default (brave and brave-bin packages), execute the following:

xdg-settings set default-web-browser brave-browser.desktop
xdg-mime default brave-browser.desktop x-scheme-handler/http
xdg-mime default brave-browser.desktop x-scheme-handler/https

This should be enough. If not, setting the BROWSER variable to brave may help in some cases.

Relying on xdg-utils appears to also be the approach in Chromium-based browsers (including Brave).

Debugging

% xdg-settings get default-web-browser  
brave-browser.desktop
% xdg-settings check default-web-browser brave-browser.desktop
yes
% xdg-mime query default x-scheme-handler/http
brave-browser.desktop
% xdg-mime query default x-scheme-handler/https
brave-browser.desktop
% echo "$BROWSER"
brave
% grep brave ~/.config/mimeapps.list                   
text/html=brave-browser.desktop
x-scheme-handler/http=brave-browser.desktop
x-scheme-handler/https=brave-browser.desktop
x-scheme-handler/about=brave-browser.desktop
x-scheme-handler/unknown=brave-browser.desktop
%

Final notes

If the above doesn't work for you, please include any relevant information about your setup - most notably the desktop environment/window manager and the Brave package.

rebron · 2021-09-16T22:48:53Z

Closing due to the instructions provided in the last comment.

cndouglas mentioned this issue Dec 5, 2018

Cannot set Brave as default browser Arch Linux brave/browser-laptop#15323

Closed

tildelowengrimm added OS/Linux priority/P4 Planned work. We expect to get to it "soon". labels Dec 12, 2018

rebron added the needs-more-info The report requires more detail before we can decide what to do with this issue. label Dec 18, 2018

rebron added this to the 1.x Backlog milestone Dec 18, 2018

rebron modified the milestone: 1.x Backlog Feb 7, 2019

tildelowengrimm added the packaging Making Brave natively available to install on a variety of platforms, app stores, and repositories. label Jul 2, 2019

fmarier added OS/Linux/arch and removed OS/Linux labels Nov 1, 2019

fmarier added priority/P5 Not scheduled. Don't anticipate work on this any time soon. and removed priority/P4 Planned work. We expect to get to it "soon". labels Nov 1, 2019

This was referenced Sep 11, 2020

[Desktop] Brave cannot be set as the default browser on Arch Linux #11032

Closed

[Desktop]Cannot make Brave the default browser on Linux #1274

Closed

fmarier mentioned this issue Oct 21, 2020

[Desktop] Brave has no option to prevent "Set default browser" notification appearing repeatedly #9306

Closed

mihaiplesa assigned wknapik Mar 22, 2021

bsclifton mentioned this issue May 28, 2021

Brave fails to set itself as the default browser #16012

Closed

wknapik mentioned this issue Aug 2, 2021

Links from PDF not opening in Brave #17283

Open

rebron closed this as completed Sep 16, 2021

rebron added closed/no-milestone and removed needs-more-info The report requires more detail before we can decide what to do with this issue. labels Sep 16, 2021

wknapik mentioned this issue Nov 2, 2023

Set as default seems to have no effect on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (using Snap) #34053

Closed

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Cannot set Brave as default browser Arch Linux #2377

Cannot set Brave as default browser Arch Linux #2377

cndouglas commented Dec 5, 2018

Brave-Matt commented Dec 6, 2018

helionmelion commented Dec 8, 2018 •

edited

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Kallestofeles commented Dec 10, 2018

helionmelion commented Dec 10, 2018

cinderisles commented Dec 10, 2018

helionmelion commented Dec 10, 2018

tildelowengrimm commented Dec 12, 2018

aphelionz commented Dec 21, 2018 •

edited

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ryanerwin commented Mar 27, 2019

fmarier commented Apr 24, 2019

cinderisles commented Apr 24, 2019

fmarier commented Apr 24, 2019

Pitasi commented Jul 2, 2019 •

edited

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kirk-baird commented Jul 4, 2019

helionmelion commented Jul 4, 2019

Valinwolf commented Jul 25, 2019

Gilgames000 commented Nov 1, 2019 •

edited

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fmarier commented Nov 1, 2019

badlydrawnface commented Nov 14, 2019

whezzel commented Nov 14, 2019

martin-varbanov96 commented May 27, 2020

baptiste-dauphin commented May 27, 2020 •

edited

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fmarier commented Sep 11, 2020

oviniciusfeitosa commented Dec 8, 2020 •

edited

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adriano-pinaffo commented Dec 12, 2020

FahriDevZ commented Mar 1, 2021

wknapik commented Mar 23, 2021 •

edited

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rebron commented Sep 16, 2021

Cannot set Brave as default browser Arch Linux #2377

Cannot set Brave as default browser Arch Linux #2377

Comments

cndouglas commented Dec 5, 2018

Description

Steps to Reproduce

Actual result:

Expected result:

Reproduces how often:

Brave version (brave://version info)

Reproducible on current release:

Website problems only:

Additional Information

Brave-Matt commented Dec 6, 2018

helionmelion commented Dec 8, 2018 • edited Loading

Kallestofeles commented Dec 10, 2018

helionmelion commented Dec 10, 2018

cinderisles commented Dec 10, 2018

helionmelion commented Dec 10, 2018

tildelowengrimm commented Dec 12, 2018

aphelionz commented Dec 21, 2018 • edited Loading

ryanerwin commented Mar 27, 2019

fmarier commented Apr 24, 2019

cinderisles commented Apr 24, 2019

fmarier commented Apr 24, 2019

Pitasi commented Jul 2, 2019 • edited Loading

kirk-baird commented Jul 4, 2019

helionmelion commented Jul 4, 2019

Valinwolf commented Jul 25, 2019

Gilgames000 commented Nov 1, 2019 • edited Loading

fmarier commented Nov 1, 2019

badlydrawnface commented Nov 14, 2019

whezzel commented Nov 14, 2019

martin-varbanov96 commented May 27, 2020

baptiste-dauphin commented May 27, 2020 • edited Loading

fmarier commented Sep 11, 2020

oviniciusfeitosa commented Dec 8, 2020 • edited Loading

adriano-pinaffo commented Dec 12, 2020

FahriDevZ commented Mar 1, 2021

wknapik commented Mar 23, 2021 • edited Loading

Arch documentation on default applications

Brave .desktop filenames on Arch Linux

Set Brave as default browser

Debugging

Final notes

rebron commented Sep 16, 2021

helionmelion commented Dec 8, 2018 •

edited

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aphelionz commented Dec 21, 2018 •

edited

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Pitasi commented Jul 2, 2019 •

edited

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Gilgames000 commented Nov 1, 2019 •

edited

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baptiste-dauphin commented May 27, 2020 •

edited

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oviniciusfeitosa commented Dec 8, 2020 •

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wknapik commented Mar 23, 2021 •

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